Trailer : Alesia Cosmos in concert – April 27, 2019 in Strasbourg

Agitation Frite is a striking panorama of the French musical underground. In this last of the three volumes, Philippe Robert documents the practices of this musical network. This book of 410 pages contains 26 interviews, including those of François Tusques, Joëlle Léandre, Delphine Dora, Jean-Baptiste Favory, André Jaume, Gérard Siracusa, Daniel Deshays, Philippe Carles, Theo Jarrier, Jacques Debout, Bruno de Chénerilles ….

And do not miss the pages where Alesia Cosmos is mentioned. A long interview with Bruno de Chénerilles p.74 to 80 and the first LP Exclusivo !, ranked by Jacques Debout among the 12 unavoidable recordings p.85

In addition, it also contains more than 600 recommended record chronicles. From psychedelic rock to free jazz, from sound poetry to electroacoustic, from acid rock to Rock In Opposition, from library music to “experimental song”, from anti-yéyés to outsiders, from punk rock to rock indus, field recordings to free improvisation, hardcore to post-rock, noise to black metal …

Well known in the industry, Philippe Robert is the host of the blog Merzbo-Derek, a contributor to Revue & Corrigée and a former Jazz Magazine contributor, Les Inrockuptibles, Octopus, Mouvement. In addition, He has dedicated several books to creative music. Among which : Musiques expérimentales, Post-Punk, No Wave, Indus & Noise, Agitation Frite 1 et 2 and with Guillaume Belhomme, Free Fight This Is (Our) New Thing.

After the release of the first album Exclusivo! In the spring of 1983, followed by a few concerts in the east of France (Strasbourg, Limersheim, Metz) and the participation of the members in the event Sous-Paradis in Strasbourg in June of the same year, the members of the group are resolutely turning to consistent projects. A mail order service of K7 and discs, a sound magazine for radios, telephone musics, living room musics and a second album.

Unlike most of the underground groups of this time, A.C. had been structured, starting in January 1983 by creating the Planetarium organization. Their goal was to find public funding for their creations and activity. As early as 1984, applications for public grants resonated favourably with the Ministry of Culture in particular. Directed by Jack Lang, he sought to support the free radios across France.

Planeta, the new music sound review

This radio project existed from 84 to 86. The programs were recorded on cassettes. A whole network of local radio stations in France broadcast them. Reports in festivals, interviews of musicians, composers, excerpts from concerts and discs were mounted in documentary modules of 15 mn each. An issue of the magazine Planeta counted each time 4 different and autonomous sequences, ready to be broadcast in the new music programs. In total, Planeta produced 9 hours of documentaries from 84 to 86. Listen to our reissue (2018) in podcasts on this blog and on digital networks: the Planeta Podcast. This funded radio production put on more professional rails the Planetarium organization. It also helped strengthen the hard core of the group, the trio Marie-Berthe Servier, Pascal Holtzer and Bruno de Chénerilles.

Living Room Music

It is under these conditions that the new creations developed in 1984 : compositions for the 2nd album of A. C., but also in the form of a series of long-lasting K7, Living Room Musics, intended to serve as domestic soundscapes. We can also imagine a digital re-edition of this musical series. Why not in 2019?

While developing its network in France and abroad, the group also intended to establish itself more strongly in its homeland Alsace. He was often regarded by some in the artistic and cultural milieu, as a band of Martians. Some cultural officials were more inclined to see them go elsewhere to not have to support them (they will recognize themselves…). Fortunately, not all decision-makers were of this opinion, and valuable support allowed them to continue and consolidate these projects.

Musical crossbreeding and cultural action

A programme of pedagogical actions on musical crossbreeding, electronics and voice took place at the Agricultural High School in Obernai in partnership with the Cultural Association of Obernai: workshops for students, musical creation and concerts.Alésia Cosmos and Planetarium were already defending at that time a double articulation between the local and the planetary. The network functioning of the musical underground of the time gave a framework to the reflections of the french philosophers Deleuze and Guattari on the model of the rhizome, as well as to the concept of Global Village approached a few decades earlier by the canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan .

A planetary rhizome

At the bottom, it was indeed a gigantic planetary rhizome. The first furrows were dug by the artistic avant-garde of the first half of the twentieth century. They were then heavily recovered, institutionalized, dried up and neutralized after the Second World War. And the youth surge around the world against the Vietnam war, against the old world in general, had revived an underground rhizome in the sixties. A reaction against rock and pop very quickly merchandised.Free jazz, free music, progressive rock, then punk, industrial music etc… All these more or less subversive musical nebulae were thus born in the analogue era and just before the next era of digital media and the Internet...

In this context, the members of Alésia Cosmos began to work on their 2nd album at the end of 1983. The first album had been fully autoproduced, but recorded and mixed in studios in Alsace and Paris. The very small Planetarium broadcast network allowed to sell 300 copies in the first year. This result and the good feedback from the press were encouraging. But the work of prospecting and networking had been very heavy.

The 2nd album: Aeroproducts

They decided to record and to mix by installing a studio in the apartment of Bruno de Chénerilles in the centre of Strasbourg. Another innovative and pioneering idea. At the time, the analogue equipment, therefore quite heavy, suggested that this was not possible. The devices were borrowed right and left to finally assemble a complete 8-track studio. 2 rooms of the apartment were mobilized and soundproofed. The formula allowed, at a cost close to zero, to have the studio for several weeks and to gain more creative freedom.

Recording and mixing the entire album at home was a challenge. After observing and experimenting the studio work for the first album, but also at Radio France on several creation projects with expert sound engineers, the members of the group were ready to operate themselves.The hard core of the group took control of the production. They re-invited the other two members of the group, Pierre Clavreux and Lotfi Ben Ayed, on a large part of the prepared titles.

A greater place was left to improvise, with a series of free impros generally in different trios.These improvised titles were generated instantly and without prior consultation. The only specification: a duration around the minute and a top start. The process gave birth to several small spontaneous, but definitive and well designed compositions. They all appear in the album. They can be easily taken for more written compositions. The creative cohesion of the group and especially of the hard core was at its peak.

The publication

Spring 1984, A.C. had recorded the complete album for the LP project. And at that stage, talks were engaged with several better-established labels that could have published the album. The American label DYS was a most probable time partner, but renounced during the summer.

Then the group had the idea of turning to the Swiss label Hat Hut. Although very focused on avant-garde jazz, the label had just released the Catalogue album by Jac Berrocal. With Gilbert Artman (drums) and Jean-François Pauvros (electric guitar), Berrocal played a knock-off cocktail of free-rock, very improvised, both wild and subtle. Alésia Cosmos was a fan and saw themselves as quite close, kind of cousins…So after all, the Swiss label might be interested…

The cassette was sent and immediately aroused the interest of the label. A week later, the answer fell. The label proposed to release the album in the same collection Hat Art. Just as with Berrocal’s album, the box should contain more than a LP, at least one single or a maxi-EP, in order to be included in the collection. Having more material ready, the group recorded quickly, this time at the Studio Weekend in Gambsheim (Alsace), where they had recorded Exclusivo!. They quickly recorded and mixed 4 titles for what was supposed to be a 12inch maxi-single. The label proposed to make this addition the sideC of a double LP. The 4th, face D, would be carved with a silent groove.

Thus, at the beginning of 1985, on the Hat Artlabel, appeared Aeroproducts, the second album of Alésia Cosmos.
Long out of print, for more than 15 years, Aeroproducts will be republished in an augmented and remastered edition in 2019.

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This fruitful period of musical experimentation of all kinds – see post: Premises -1977-1982 – ended with the launch of the first album of Alésia Cosmos.End of 82 Pascal Holtzer and I Bruno de Chenerilles composed and prepared sketches in their respective home studios.

NB: the term did not yet exist, only a few electroacoustic composers and some sound tweakers ventured to analog mixing and recording equipment. Some Revox stereo recorders, a mixer, a few microphones, speakers and then analog synths, the first rhythm boxes, some effects – reverb, delay, fuzz, our electric guitars. It took us a few years to acquire these expensive machines.
At this time there was no computer software and the first affordable multi-track recorders appeared a little later. But with this equipment we could compose and rehearse. We found traces of some of these sketches recorded during the phases of preparation before recording this first album Exclusivo!

Beginning 83, we also founded a non-profit structure to carry the first album’s project. Planetarium was founded in March 1983 at the very moment when we formed the group.

In addition to Pascal and myself, we invited Marie-Berthe Servier, who was involved in Corbo Combo in the previous decade, as well as an excellent Tunisian percussionist Lotfi Ben Ayed burning to mix his darbukas, bendir and bagpipes with our drum machines. A fifth strange character also joined in: Pierre Clavreux, a fake wacky breton ex-barde, who returned from Japan where he had hit the big drums of the group Kodō in Sadoisland.

In February or March, we were ready for recording the album at Studio Weekend in Gambsheim North of Strasbourg. A brand new small studio with a TEAC 8-track recorder, a professional mixing console, a few good microphones and a few analog effects. The studio was owned by Guy Mas and Jean-FrançoisIssemann. They ensured all takes for a good week, which is very short for an entire album.

The project had matured for several years. The album was very wellprepared. The members of the group were inspired and this very minimalist music was based on a mix between electro, rock, traditional music, composition and free improvisation. Each brought his particular feeling and the sauce had taken immediately on previous rehearsals.

We had decided to entrust the mix to another person in order to have an outside view of our music. We had met Michel Risse, ex-drummer of the french group Herbe Rouge and also electroacoustic composer. He was then beginning with his to become famous company Decor Sonore. Michel was involved in Sous-Paradis and he was in charge of producing the album in which all members of Alésia Cosmos contributed individually.

Appointment was made with Michel to mix the album at the Anagram studio in Paris. Pascal and I borrowed an old car to Jack Nietzsche (ex-bassist of Alesia Cosmos furi show duo). I remember an old CitroënAmi 8 which the engine went to smoke on East Highway in a downhill slope to Verdun.
Our tapes under our arms, Pascal and myself we joined Anagram studio by train, then by metro and stayed all night to mix the album with Michel Risse.

The launch of the album took place in mid-April with the first 3 concerts at L’Ange d’Or theatre-café our favorite venue in Strasbourg, France.

Concerts

Press extracts

Reissue

Exclusivo! will be reissued on vinyl in September 2017 !
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